If you’re anything like me, you love the Muppets and you want to help make the world a better place without actually knowing how to go about it. In that order.
It’s hard to know what to do when the world is hurting, but we want to do our best to encourage anyone who wants to take action (and also loves the Muppets) to do some good. That’s why we launched the Muppet Fans Doing Good campaign last week.
We are currently raffling off 18 Muppet-related prizes, all generously donated by Muppet performers, artists, and our friends from the Muppet fan community. If you haven’t checked in since our original announcement, you’ll want to revisit our list, as we’d been adding items throughout the week.
Here’s the rub: The deadline for entering the raffle is this Sunday, June 28th. So if you want one of our amazing prizes, now’s the time to donate.
Another important update: We are now accepting international entries, thanks to a generous anonymous donor who has agreed to cover shipping costs! Great news for Muppet fans who want to do good from Belgium or Australia or Equatorial Guinea!
Here’s a reminder of how to join the campaign and enter the raffle:
- You donate to one of the organizations below:
- NAACP Legal Defense Fund – A leading United States civil rights organization and law firm
- ACLU – Nonprofit to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States
- The Okra Project – Bringing meals to Black Trans people experiencing homelessness
- The Loveland Foundation – Providing mental health resources to women of color
- Color of Change – The nation’s largest online racial justice organization
- Equal Justice Initiative – Protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society
- You’ll forward the original confirmation email to contest@toughpigs.com
- For every $20 you donate, you’ll be entered for one raffle “ticket”
- For example, donating $20 will allow you to enter your name into the raffle once
- Donating $100 will allow you to enter the raffle 5 times
- Donating $20,000 will get you 1,000 entries
- You can give as much as you’d like to as many organizations as you’d like!
- On Sunday, June 28th, we will choose the winners, who will receive an email asking them to choose their top 3 prize choices. We will do our best to award the requested prizes to each winner.
And now, the moment you’ve all been scrolling for, the prizes!
Noel MacNeal, best known as the performer of Bear from Bear in the Big Blue House, has volunteered to give one lucky winner a personalized video greeting from Bear himself!
Sesame Workshop’s Creative Director of Character Design Louis Henry Mitchell has graciously agreed to illustrate Muppet character illustrations for five lucky winners. These will be highly-detailed, black-and-white, and of any character you request.
Abby Cadabby performer Leslie Carrara-Rudolph will be donating an original artwork, as well as an autographed piece of Sesame Street merchandise. If you’ve ever seen Leslie’s pipe cleaner sculptures, you’d know that anything she creates is amazing and original.
ToughPigs’ artist-in-residence Chris “Smig” Smigliano created TWO original Muppet-themed art pieces for two winners. The first piece, titled “Roosevelt Franklin Elementary School”, is mixed media and colored by hand, and it measures 11″x14″. The second, “Matt in Hand”, is watercolor paint and pencil, measuring 10″x11″. Smig may have drawn more Muppets than anyone else over the past 15+ years, and we’re proud to include him in this campaign!
The incredibly talented artist Peter Savieri has offered to create a digital art piece of Miss Piggy, exclusively for the winner. Should they choose to, the winner will also get to dictate the details of Piggy’s pose, costume, or parody. (As long as it’s appropriate, of course.)
Not to be outdone, ToughPigs writer Evan G. will also be donating an original watercolor art piece of the Muppet of your choosing! Evan has a particular love of painting obscure characters, so the winner can feel free to request any fan favorite they desire!
Luke Flowers, who has created some truly incredible Muppet artwork over the past few years, is offering a signed copy of his beautiful Muppet Christmas Carol storybook and an illustrated print of his Muppet work!
Our friends at the Muppet Stuff blog are donating an extremely rare Wilkins puppet! These hand puppets were produced for Kraml Milk around 1966, and are among the earliest pieces of Muppet merchandise. This is an incredible prize for any collector!
Muppet performer Matt Vogel is donating a Muppets Most Wanted prize pack, featuring a Constantine plush, a signed copy of the Blu-ray, and Matt’s personal copy of the movie script! Nailed it!
Longtime Sesame Street cast member Alan Muraoka will be giving one of our lucky donors a Julia prize pack, featuring a Julia plush, autographed photos, and an autographed book of Julia’s debut, “We’re Amazing, 1, 2, 3!” Believe me, all of our donors are amazing.
ToughPigs and The Muppet Mindset are teaming up to offer a virtual prize pack! The winner of this package will be invited to a private, 30-minute Muppet conversation with the owners of both sites. They will also get to dictate the theme of a week’s worth of Muppet quotes on the @MuppetQuotes Twitter feed. And they will get to appear as a guest on ToughPigs’ Movin’ Right Along podcast! Wow!
ToughPigs is also donating a mystery prize pack, full of rare and/or foreign Muppet merchandise from our own collections. What exactly does this pack include?? You’ll have to win to find out!
Last, but certainly not least, Muppet performer Peter Linz has generously donated his personal Jim Henson Company jean jacket. This jacket is from around 1990, size large, and in great shape. The jacket also comes with a Pinocchio pin, commemorating the fact that Peter performed Pinocchio in the Center For Puppetry Arts touring production.
As a reminder: Only one prize will be awarded per winner. Donations must be dated after June 8th. Prizes may be mailed anytime over the next few months due to the shutdown.
Many thanks to everyone who has already donated or is planning on donating, as well as our generous prize donors and anyone sharing this campaign on their social media channels.
And, of course, thank you for being part of the change. Now let’s go do some good.
Click here to help change the world on the ToughPigs forum!
by Joe Hennes – Joe@ToughPigs.com
